c---J G; -=-J . :3 â I = d '" = 36 iC iC ').,0 v \.0 . - · j1 . ", 4 J - ,::i > --- " ,... \,-)'- / -cp - ,:;" fS / j.. ',,' <? : :/- ," .,- ::. :'. ,-:-.:. îW -J W .if .:...j . ...tt:-... :y; . ",' 'iil' ' ...': . :::- : gl 11 81 I'll 1 I J t I I I I II I 1 . ' , / - 1 - '14 J .v...... . "" _: . f' ..:... . 1 r \ '."."", .'\ ..,.", V> '.' .g= ....'1,. .'...... -ld %i.\::" " - :::::.:.:.: of having a hold of something we couldn't let go of. Hartley kept knock- ing them off my tail and I kept knocking them off his tail. He got a Zero and I got a Zero, and I saw a third Zero quitting the fight. At that point Hartley disappeared. I dove, looking for a cloud, one ] ap peppering me with lead all the way down. He riddled me from wing tip to wing tip, and one of the bullets knocked the rudder pedal out from un- der my feet. At eight thousand feet I found some clouds. When I came out on the other side, I found that I still had control by using the rudder brackets, but my engine was shot up. "I made a forced landing in the sea by a little island, which I found out later is called Mandoliana. I crawled out of my overalls and swam for at least an hour before I reached shore. I was so bushed that I lay on the beach for a while. Then I got up and walked back from the beach to where the trees began. I figured that I was about twenty miles from Guadalcanal. My plane had sunk, naturally, so there was nothing to show a searching party where I was. It was up to me to find my own way home. As I was drying my automatic, I saw four natives walking up the beach and I de- cided to capture them. Two of them were carrying machetes and the other two were carrying spears. When they got within ten feet of me, I said, 'Halt! Drop those weapons!' They just looked at me. At last one of them, apparently the boss, said, 'Me friendly. Me Chris- tian.' I said, 'All right, then, Christian, go ahead and drop your weapons.' The boss said again, 'Me friendly. Me Chris- tian,' but he didn't drop his spear. This went on for five or ten minutes. I be- gan to feel pretty silly. Besides, I was too tired to care what happened. I put my gun away, and the boss said, 'Me friendly. Me Christian. Me Charlie. I take you to friends.' I didn't know whether he meant my friends or his friends, but I set off along the beach with two natives ahead of me and the other two behind me. I still claim that I captured them. At the other end of the island we came on some native kids, fi ve or six years old, who climbed the trees and got some coconut milk for me to drink. It was then about three o'clock and the natives decided that there would be time enough before dark to take me to a neighboring island, where they said I would find friends. They set me in the bottom of a leaky old canoe and handed me half a coconut shell with which to bail. We paddled four or five miles to another island, called Hangia- ma. There I was taken to a mission